Sudbury: Construction of ‘makerspace’ underway at library

Wednesday

Jan 10, 2018 at 8:00 PMJan 10, 2018 at 8:00 PM

Jonathan Dame Daily News Staff @DameReports

SUDBURY – A yellow stepladder and a three-wheeled garbage bin overflowing with ceiling tiles now sit where the assistant library director once sat. Wooden posts and metal beams, having evicted four other librarians, lay in wait on a bare concrete floor.

But the upheaval will be worth it in the end.

Goodnow Library is constructing a “makerspace” in a second-floor nook previously home to an office for librarians and a teen reading room. The Sara Sherman NOW Lab, as it will be called, will be a place for hands-on learning and collaboration.

It’s part of a broader “reimagining” of the library’s second story: new carpets, a new reference desk, and a new arrangement of computers and book stacks. And in the library’s original wing, built in the 19th century, will be a newly retrofitted room for quiet study.

“It’s really going to transform the library into what libraries are becoming now, which is a fitness center for your brain,” said Samantha Greenfield, development director of the Goodnow Library Foundation. “Libraries are not just about books anymore. It’s about space to collaborate and space to meet and space to work together.”

The NOW Lab, which could open as soon as March, will house things like a 3D printer, a laser cutter, sewing machines and a blackboard-sized touch-screen tablet. It will be named after Sara Sherman, a Sudbury native and book lover who died in 2014 at age 40.

“People are so interested now in engineering and science and technology … and having a neutral, safe space to come here and pursue those interests,” said Esme Green, the library director. “I think it’s going to open a lot of doors and really bring awareness of how diverse and innovative a library can be for a community.”

Construction began in November. Private fundraising by the Goodnow Library Foundation, an independent nonprofit, is paying for the roughly $350,000 project. The foundation still needs to raise another $75,000.

Janice Corkin Rudolf, the Sudbury artist who sculpted the figure of a reading girl that sits outside the library’s side entrance, is donating a work of art to the project, a sculpture to be placed near the lab.

As a fundraiser, residents have the opportunity right now to purchase and paint ceramic floor tiles that will surround the new sculpture (for between $250 and $5,000).

Sometime this spring, the library will need to shut down the second floor for roughly two weeks to lay new carpet and reorganize the shelves. But once the space reopens, Green said, it will be a resource for all.

“It’s not going to be this big, beautiful, expensive space that we built that we lock 90 percent of the time. We’re building it so that it’s open all the time for people,” Green said. “It’s totally meant to be there for people when they need it.”

Jonathan Dame can be reached at 508-626-3919 or jdame@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @DameReports